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The grim worry evaporates when Sascha catches movement outside the car and immediately identifies it as Avery hopping the fence, going over the electric wire like he doesn’t feel any shock. A bright grin takes over Sascha’s face, hurting his cheeks. He rolls down the passenger window and ducks to better see Avery’s approach.

Avery is wearing a loose tank-top and shorts that stop just above his knees, along with his boots. His curls bounce with every step, freckles dark across his nose, the rest of his skin rosy and glowing in the morning sunlight.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Sascha calls through the open window, laughing when Avery makes a show of stopping in his tracks and looking around. There’s nothing but swaying grass and trees, no one else to pin the accusation on. “Yes, Idomean you. Get in.” Sascha stretches to unlatch the door, which Avery easily could have done without help. It’s worth it to see the sunniness of his smile. Avery hops inside, so short he doesn’t even have to bow his head to avoid hitting it on the roof of the car.

Before Sascha can decide what to say next, Avery leans across the center console to drop a kiss on his cheek. Then he draws back like nothing happened, leaving Sascha gawping like a teenager while Avery adjusts in his seat, closes the door, and buckles in.

When finished, the smile Avery throws his way is shameless. “Where’re we headed?”

Sascha snorts belatedly, then puts the car in drive, getting off Dennings Farm property as fast as he can before he hitsthe road and slows down enough to answer. “There’s a lake by my home.”

Avery stiffens. “By your… On your pack land?”

Wincing, Sascha realizes that was another thing he should have mentioned sooner. “It is, but it’s… secret. No one goes there but me. For reasons.”

“Reasons,” Avery repeats, deadpan.

“Yes. I call it ‘Forgotten Lake.’ It’s named something else, I’m sure, but no one else goes near it, so I… forgotten. By everyone but me. Yeah.”

A hesitant smile triumphs over the nervous purse of Avery’s lips. “It’s a good name. Straight to the point.”

“Ah, shut up.”

Avery laughs, the tension bleeding out of him. “How can you guarantee no one will come down to your lake?”

“It’s hard as hell to get to, first of all,” Sascha says with a grin. “It’s good you wore boots. But also, everyone believes it’s cursed.” Sascha doesn’t know how Avery will react tothatadmission, and is relieved when it’s a burst of laughter.

“You’re telling me the dominant shifter pack in this county is afraid of a cursed lake?”

Now Sascha’s lips are pursed as he tries to put the words together. “My mom loved the water, so she visited the lake often. She was swimming the day she had her first episode.”

“Episode? What, like your spinning sickness?”

Sascha nods. “She almost drowned. Dad had to dive under and drag her back to shore. She never stopped going to the lake, and then she had me, and… Everyone was so excited about a new alpha, future pack leader, but then…”

“You got it from her,” Avery concludes without Sascha having to say it.

“Yeah. So no one goes there anymore, not since she died. I don’t think the lake area had anything to do with her getting sick, but a few of the pack elders are really superstitious. Shifting is a sacred tether between us and the aether, whichtakes our energy and converts it into a different whole. It connects our shifted forms and keeps us balanced. A disturbance in that aether could, in theory, taint that balance. The spinning sickness throws off an individual’s ability to pass through the aether safely.”

“Stuff about magic and aether is all new to me,” Avery says, “But I’ve read enough fantasy fiction to get a basic idea. I can’t help but wonder what could even happen to corrupt such a nebulous thing.”

Sascha scratches the back of his neck. “One of the elders suggested there was a rogue werecreature who used magic to make the water toxic, even though there are perimeter wards to keep werecreatures off the pack land. It caused so much panic that Dad finally put a fence up around the entire area, hoping that sealing it off would stop the hysteria.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

Avery muses for a moment, humming. “If there are wards against werecreatures, how will you get me in there?”

With a smug grin, Sascha launches into the explanation: “Our pack shamans got sloppy about replacing wards around the perimeter near the lake. I moved the markers to the other side of the fence, so the way we’re approaching, there’s nothing to trigger. The shamans haven’t noticed because they recharge those wards from a distance, and there’s no reason for them to check one little corner for correctly placed markers.”

“That isdiabolical,” Avery says with a matching grin. “Have you ever brought anyone else here?”

Unsure why the question brings heat to his face, Sascha says, “No. Never.”

Avery clears his throat and settles deeper into his seat. He looks out the window, and when Sascha spares a quick glance away from the road, he sees color in Avery’s cheeks to match Sascha’s own. The tips of his ears aresored.

Giddy elation settles in Sascha’s chest, lodging in his throat and making it hard to swallow. Once he can convince his dry tongue to work again, he says, “Anyway, no one knows I still come here. Not even Dad. I want to believe he’d understand, but he’s already ignored Mom’s most important dying wish, so I can’t risk it.” Sascha expects Avery to ask about the wish and prepares himself for a conversation about his uncertain future about the Madison pack’s future alpha.